Kim moved her bags inside and closed and locked the door behind her.

The clock on the bedside table said it was now after five o’clock in the morning. Her former partner, Carlos Gaspar, would be awake and at his desk.

Gaspar rarely slept well. Pain in his right side kept him alert and exhausted most of the time. Which meant he’d probably been available last night, but she’d had no opportunity to contact him before now.

Even if she’d tried.

Which she hadn’t.

Because the possibility that Reacher was involved with the dead Mr. X had not occurred to her until Russell mentioned it. Now that the question had been posed, Kim couldn’t shake the feeling that Russell was probably right.

She opened her travel bag and found the fresh burner phone she’d stashed there before she left her apartment. She fired it up and dialed one of the encrypted burners she’d sent Gaspar a few weeks ago.

Neither burner phone had been turned on before. Which should mean that Cooper wasn’t tracing calls. Not yet anyway.

The phone rang three times before Gaspar picked up, slightly breathless. “Sorry, Sunshine. I had to dig you out of the bottom drawer. Took me a minute.”

“No worries, Chico.” Kim’s tired smile stole onto her face and made her feel a bit better. She pulled her laptop out and fired up her encryption equipment. “I’ve got a situation. I’m sending you fingerprints, ear prints, and photos of a guy. I need to know who he is.”

“Hang on a sec.”

She heard a few clacking keystrokes as he prepared to receive her intel. Steady, reliable Gaspar. He’d proven himself more times than she could count. Once again, he didn’t disappoint.

“Ready when you are.”

“Coming now.” Kim connected to her secure server, pulled the data she’d stored there, and transferred it to Gaspar. He’d been her first partner on the Reacher assignment. For medical reasons, he’d retired a few weeks back and taken a job with a high-end private outfit called Scarlett Investigations in Houston.

Kim was devastated when Gaspar left the FBI. But she soon realized that he was a much more valuable asset to her on the outside of the FBI than he’d been on the inside.

Scarlett Investigations was well funded with a client roster of heavy hitters and the means to handle everything Kim could do inside the FBI and a lot more.

Gaspar was no longer handcuffed by the rules and constraints a working FBI Special Agent was subjected to. Which meant he was about a thousand times more valuable than before.

“Got it,” he said, clacking the keys on his keyboard. He mumbled the steps as he received the files, opened them, stored the data, and began the real work. “Uploading the fingerprints first. Searching now. Ear prints, more reliable than fingerprints, as you know, going next. Photos last, and going now.”

“Anything else?” Gaspar asked. “How about the CCTV in your building. See anything helpful there?”

“No chance to check it yet. But affirmative on physical evidence,” she said slowly, looking at the only items she’d pulled off the body. “I’ve got a key card and no idea what it opens. A couple of DNA swabs. And a burner phone with only one number in the call log. Anything you can do with those?”

“You know I can. But I need physical possession of the DNA and the key card to run them.” Gaspar slurped loudly over the phone, which made Kim smile.

He was drinking the sweet Cuban coffee he loved like a kid would drink it. He’d made the noise to lift her spirits and she appreciated it.

She gave him the phone number.

“I’ll figure out how to get you the DNA and the key card,” Kim yawned. “Can we talk after I get a few hours of shuteye?”

“You bet. I’ll be here,” he said as he rang off.

Kim glanced longingly at the bed, knowing she was too wired to sleep. She opened her laptop and pulled up her building’s CCTV footage. She ran the recordings at triple speed, scanning for the dead man and the shooter.

-

Chapter 7

Friday, June 3

New York, NY